Polwhele, melancholy as ever, helped him to his feet.
“Nawthin’ broke, Squire? That’s fitly. You’ll beat me next year—could of this, if you’d waited.” He put a blade of grass between his teeth and staggered off to join his vociferous friends, the least jubilant of any.
Bohenna came up with his master’s clothes. “ ’Nother time you’m out against a quick man go slow—make en come to you. Eddn no sense in playin’ tig with forked lightnin’. I shouted to ’e, but you was too furious to hear. Oh, well, ’tis done now, s’pose.”
He walked away to hob-nob with the sticklers in the “Lamb and Flag,” to drink ale and wag their heads and lament on the decay of wrestling and manhood since they were young.
Eli pulled on his clothes. One or two Monks Covers shouted “Stout tussle, Squire,” but did not stop to talk, nor did he expect them to; he was respected in the parish, but had none of the graceful qualities that make for popularity.
His mother went by, immensely fat, yet sitting her cart-horse firm as a rock.
“The little dog had ’e by the nose proper that time, my great soft bullock,” she jeered, and rode on, laughing. She hated Eli; as master of Bosula he kept her short of money, even going to the length of publicly crying down her credit. Had he not done so, they would have been ruined long since instead of in a fair state of prosperity, but Teresa took no count of that. She was never tired of informing audiences—preferably in Eli’s presence—that if her other son had been spared, her own precious boy Ortho, things would have been very different. He would not have seen her going in rags, without a penny piece to bless herself, not he. Time, in her memory, had washed away all the elder’s faults, leaving only virtues exposed, and those grossly exaggerated. She would dilate for hours on his good looks, his wit, his courage, his loving consideration for herself, breaking into hot tears of rage when she related the fancied indignities she suffered at the hands of the paragon’s unworthy brother.
She was delighted that Polwhele had bested Eli, and rode home jingling her winnings on the event. Eli went on dressing, unmoved by his mother’s jibes. As a boy he had learnt to close his ears to the taunts of Rusty Rufus, and he found the accomplishment most useful. When Teresa became abusive he either walked out of the house or closed up like an oyster and her tirades beat harmlessly against his spiritual shell. Words, words, nothing but words; his contempt for talk had not decreased as time went on.
He pulled his belt up, hustled into his best blue coat and was knotting his neckcloth when somebody behind him said, “Well wrastled, Eli.”
He turned and saw Mary Penaluna with old Simeon close beside.